"Stan The Man" wrote in message
...
In article , Kay Easton
wrote:

In article , Stan The Man
writes

Probably not. Perhaps one reason for our declining education standards
is that too many teachers teach without having achieved their degree
and teachers' training qualifications.

Where are you talking about? Not UK, surely?

Now, all state school teachers are graduates - I don't know about the
independent sector.

My father was a state school teacher for 40 years until 1997. He was
avery learned man but but some of his colleagues did not have degrees.
Where does your information come from?

Then you had better go and check your facts with your father. I am sure he
would be apalled at your arrogance.
Even in 1997 the rules stated that all new entrants to teaching had to be
both graduates and have PGCE or teacher training qualifications ( called
QTS)
Whilst some older teachers ( like your dad maybe?) who were trained before
1980 it was either a teaching certificate or a degree. Between 1980 and 1989
some graduates did teach without teaching certificates but not many.

The independent sector has nearly always required its teachers to be
graduate. It also prefers them to have teaching training qualifications. The
FE sector is the same. All FE teachers are now required to have a teaching
qualification as well as their professional qualifications ( even gardeners
...... they will take a BA in Education if they do not have a dgree or its
equivillent in horticulture/agreculture etc)

Secondly, in what way are standards declining? My children are learning
things that I didn't learn till much later in life.

Maybe they do learn things about modern life that I wasn't taught. But
they learn less of English and mathematics than in my day. I have often
been shocked to see the uncorrected errors in my children's homework
after marking. Punctuation, grammar, mental arithmetic and more are way
too far down the list of teaching priorities nowadays.

OK if you want someone to balme for this - dont blame the poor teacher who
stands in front of a class every day being called a c***, a t***** a p***
artist, a s*** , a w***** and suffers all kinds of verbal and physical abuse
as well as threats - blame the national curriculum, blame the fact we ( yes
I am a teacher and have taught in classrooms) have no means of sanction
over the childrens behaviour, and most of all blame INCLUSION ( putting SEN
and EBD kids into ordinary classrooms). This is robbing your children of the
attention and the lessons they need. Whilst a teacher is dealing with a
disruptive, statemented EBD child who really shouldnt be in school, she or
he cannot help your kid.

Also blame the dumbing own of educational standards on the same thing. The
system you understand and was educated in was one of meritocracy,
sponsorship and eliteism ( if you were not good enough you would fail the
exam) now we have a mass education system where everything is certificated
and children are not expected to fail anything. if all they can do is write
their name at the top of a bit of paper , we have to certificate it as a
bloody achievement ( for some it is).
Universities now have special needs depts to support students with poor
literacy and numeracy skills. 20 years ago they would not have been in
university , let alone taking nad being awarded degrees.

That is a politcal decision, not an educational one.

rant over.